Names are significant and powerful in magic. (Alan Moore created the fictional magician, John Constantine, named after the Fourth Evangelist and the first Christian Emperor, thus combining spiritual and imperial power.) Virginia addresses the afreet as "'...Marid...'" (p. 36) but he introduces himself as:
"'...Rashid the Mighty, the glorious in power, the smiter of rocs!'" (p. 37)
- so has she got his name wrong? No. "Marid" is his race. (p. 38)
Next she must deceive him. He has to agree that the name is the thing because only in the twentieth century:
"...has Korzybski demonstrated that the word and its referent are not identical." (ibid.)
(General semantics was one input into psychotechnics.)
(Also, words have uses, therefore meanings, other than reference.)
Binding herself to speak only truth, Virginia says that her name is Ginny so the afreet accepts that she is a jinni.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And of course the afreet did not stop to wonder if "Ginny" referred not to Graylock's RACE but was merely a diminutive of her real name "Virginia."
Ad astra! Sean
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